Page 24 of Bratva Sacrifice

I’m sure his time is valuable, and he didn’t have to spend it on me. He didn’t have to walk me to train stations, or take me sightseeing, or buy me sweet wine just in case I ever decided to come over to his place. But he did do those things. So whether or not my underwear match, whether or not the elastic might be perilously close to giving out, is probably not high on his list of concerns.

Alexei shrugs of out his leather jacket and hangs it on the back of a chair at the kitchen bar. It’s been hot in Minneapolis lately, but I’ve never seen him without it. His t-shirt is white, scrupulously clean, and devoid of wrinkles. A thin silver chain hangs around his neck, pendant obscured beneath the neckline of his shirt.

His arms are covered in tattoos. Some old, the black ink faded to a blurred blue-grey. Some newer, though well past healed. I wonder if there’s some meaning to them, if they mark important events in his life. If he’ll tell me why he got them.

I wonder if he’s got any tattoos I can’t see.

Alexei kicks off his shoes and peels away his socks as he crosses to the couch, leaving them carelessly discarded on the floor. With a swipe of his arm, he shoves half the frilly throw pillows off onto the floor and reclines in the newly-vacant space. “Come, Katya,” he calls to me over his shoulder, and thumps his chest with his fist in that way I’ve decided sounds like a summons. “Bring your wine.”

I always obey. Maybe because it doesn’t feel as much like a demand as it should. Maybe because it’s always followed by his arms around me, his hands sliding beneath my clothes. His lips on mine or elsewhere. A sort of affection I think I’m growing addicted to.

Now, he pats his knee as I meander toward him. My heart trips through a few frenzied beats as my fingers curl tighter around the stem of my glass. “Come sit, koshechka,” he says, and I feel a little silly about it, but I sit. Perched on his knee, my spine straight, feet flat on the floor, legs angled between the man-spready splay of his.

His left hand finds the small of my back, slipping beneath the hem of my t-shirt so his fingers can stroke my skin. It’s such a smooth, practiced motion—but I like the heat of his hands. I like that he takes any available opportunity available to touch me, like he can’t help himself.

With his right hand, he tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Hard day, Katya?” he asks as his fingers curl around my nape.

I shake my head slowly. “No, not really.” My feet ache a little, but they always do after a long day spent standing. My shoulders rise and fall in a helpless shrug. “I guess I just—I keep thinking about that guy on the train.”

“He frightens you?”

“No—” I hesitate. “Yes,” I say sheepishly. “A little.” Probably I’m just overly sensitive. “I’m not even sure he’s been watching me. I just can’t help thinking about it, about how—how he’s always there.”

Alexei smiles that glinting, predatory smile. “You want me to frighten him?”

“No.” Exasperated, I push his shoulder with one hand in admonition, because I’m not entirely sure he wouldn’t do it. “You can’t go around just—just threatening people.”

“Katya,” he says, and lifts his hand from my neck to scrape the grin off of his face. “I can do anything I want.”

It’s not overconfidence. I really, genuinely think he believes that.

That hand on the small of my back slides up my spine. “Finish your wine,” he says. “I want to kiss you.”

I want that, too. Another icy swallow of my sweet wine as his fingers meander up my spine beneath my shirt. There’s a little pinch, the subtle tightening in the elastic of my bra before it loosens altogether. I cough through another long drink. “Did you just unhook my bra?”

“Da.” This shameless man! “Is not hard.” He lifts his chin, indicating my glass. “Finish, Katya.”

The hot splay of his hand between my shoulder blades is all the encouragement I need. I finish the wine in three swallows. My hand trembles as I cast my head about, looking for a table. “Where do I put this?”

“Drop it. I don’t care.”

I hear the glass fall to the carpeted floor with a dull thunk as Alexei shifts beneath me, toppling me back onto the couch. My shoulders land in the remaining mountain of throw pillows he failed to sweep off.

My head spins. It can’t be the wine. Not yet. Maybe it’s just those hands that slide up my belly, peeling my t-shirt off over my head and my bra along with it. “Ah, koshechka,” he says in that low, rumbly purr of a voice. “You keep this hidden from me?” He palms my breast, and the sensation sears my skin, makes me gasp.

“Alexei,” I sigh. His knee is between my legs, pressing the seam of my jeans against my pussy.

“Alyosha,” he says against the delicate skin in the valley between my breasts. “Now, koshechka, you call me Alyosha.”

“Alyosha.” A nickname. Like Katya. I like it. It sounds softer, somehow. Sweeter. Like a kind of affection only I’m allowed to use with him. My fingers graze his hair, and the cool, soft strands slide through them as my nails rasp his scalp. He makes a satisfied sound deep in his throat as he slips one hand beneath my neck, pulling me up.

His mouth slants over mine in that devouring kiss that scrambles my senses, and I sink back into the pillows as his weight bears me down. I love the sweep of his fingers across my skin, the possessive clutch of them around the back of my neck.

Too soon his lips break from mine, coasting across my cheek and down my throat to that place he loves to bite which makes my toes curl. His tongue tastes my skin in a slow, wet lap; his teeth scrape across my pulse. I know in the morning there’ll be another new mark there that I’ll have to figure out a way to hide. But I like knowing they’re there.

His stubble abrades my skin as he draws his mouth down my throat, to the swell of my breast. His hand slips down my belly, fingers toying lazily with the button of my jeans. An odd, strained noise warbles in my throat as his tongue curls around my nipple and every nerve of my body comes to life, sizzling with awareness.

“The sounds you make, Katya,” he rumbles against my breast, and the waistband of my jeans loosens. In that same deft, dexterous manner that my bra fell victim to his clever fingers, he’s somehow managed to slide my jeans over my hips until they’re wedged down around my thighs, trapped by the pressure of his knee between my legs.